Pandemic grabs billions of Namibia’s wealth

PHILLEPUS UUSKU Lockdown measures imposed last year to curb the spread of the coronavirus had a negative impact on the production of businesses.As a result, the domestic economy posted a contraction of 8.5% relative to a decline of 0.9% registered in 2019. This is the worst annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contraction since Independence, Simonis Storm said.According to the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), the total value of goods and services produced in the country last year stood at N$132.5 billion, a decline of N$12.3 billion when compared to N$144.8 recorded in 2019.The hotels and restaurants sector recorded the largest of 31.2% in 2020, compared to a positive growth of 1.5% in 2019.The poor performance in the sector was mainly attributed to the Hotels subsector which registered a decline in real value added of 39.1% in 2020, compared to a positive performance of 1.9% observed in 2019.This is due to weak demand for leisure, conferencing and accommodation activities as a result of restrictions on international travels and reduced disposable income of local traveller, NSA said.In addition, the transport and Storage’ sector continued with a downward path, registering another decline of 23.1% in real value added in 2020, further from a reduction of 2.2% recorded in 2019.Travel restrictionsThe poor performance was primarily ascribed to air transport and airport services subsectors which posted declines of 73.9% and 52.7% in real value added during the period under review. This is due to travel restrictions domestic, regional and international, following the outbreak of the pandemic and associated measures put in place to curb the spread of Covid-19, resulted in weak demand for airline services, NSA said.Moreover, the manufacturing sector recorded the third largest contraction of 18.3% in 2020 compared to a growth of 4.7% recorded in 2019.The poor performance in the manufacturing sector is mainly attributed to the significant declines recorded in the subsectors of Basic non-ferrous metals, Meat processing and Beverages which contracted by 46.8%, 39.9% and 36.5% respectively for 2020 respectively, NSA pointed out.All in all, all the major sector registered contractions except for the electricity and water, information and communications, agriculture, forestry and fishing, health, real estate activities and education sectors that posted positive performances.Each of the above-mentioned sectors recorded growth of 19.5%, 14.4%, 6.1%, 4.5%,2.8% and 0.1%, respectively. Most forecasts from local economist’s project positive growth for 2021 in the range of 1.4% to 3.0%, primarily due to our economy moving off a low base. - phillep@nmh.com.na

Pandemic grabs billions of Namibia’s wealth

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Pandemic grabs billions of Namibia’s wealth

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